Metaphor for Hell
by blue feet
Summary: Sherlock attends an exchange program at Sunnydale High. Set in Season 2 of BtVS, starting, quite perfectly, from Inca Mummy Girl.
1. Diversity Day

A/N: Hello! I own nothing from either of these fabulous fandoms, alas. Please note: The dialogue from this chapter is straight from Inca Mummy Girl, so anything in quotes in this chapter is an actual quote straight from the Whedon's, er...pen?

Don't worry, Sherlock will appear soon, he's just a bit shy about his costume.

* * *

Willow was feeling pretty good about her costume. She'd worked really hard on it, and was excited for Xander to see her. Sure, he didn't pay too much attention when she tried to tell him about it earlier – he was too busy worrying about whether or not to ask Ampata to the dance – but, well, Willow certainly stood out in the crowd at the Bronze with a fur trimmed hood and harpoon. She would definitely get his attention. So she was feeling good. Right up until the second she walked through the door.

Everyone else was decidedly not wearing fur. Well, unless you counted Harmony, who was wearing a fuzzy leopard print bikini and carrying a stick. Willow wondered whether anyone had explained to her what the student exchange program actually was.

Cordelia strolled in, all wide eyes and bare skin, her hair a in a perfect beach blow out framing her face, a giant tiger lily tucked behind her right ear and a violently pink ley around her neck. She was wearing what appeared to be a Hawaiian floral printed table cloth cut into two pieces – a tiny piece tied around her chest, and a slightly larger piece wrapped around her hips. Knowing Cordelia, however, this was sure to be wildly expensive and couture. Willow was relieved to see that at least Cordy hadn't opted for a coconut bra. She was also very sure that she didn't show that much skin on the beach, let alone at the Bronze.

_Maybe I should have worn something sexy_, she thought, watching as Cordelia, who stopped only briefly to say something insulting about Willow's own costume, met up with a geisha and Scottish bar maid.

She bobbed her head in time to the Dingoes. Devon was crooning…something heartfelt, it sounded like, and a quick glance at the stage showed his short lead guitarist on back-up vocals. Willow turned again to the door. She had to shift her whole body to do so – she had absolutely no peripheral vision in this coat when her hood was up. There was a guy in a white shawl and black hat dancing enthusiastically near the door with his plain-clothes friend.

Then Xander walked in with Ampata. He was holding her hand.

_Oh,_ Willow thought. She looked down at her puffy blue coat, the brown fur on the edges of her vision, the handle of the harpoon sliding through her be-mittened fingers. Ampata was wearing a simple dress of light brown fabric – _it looks so authentic_, Willow thought – with a thick, intricate belt around her waist. Her hair was pulled back from her face, soft thick ringlets of black resting on her shoulders. She was wide eyed, too, and as she looked around – at the students, at the band, at the Bronze – she smiled so giddily and sweetly that Willow couldn't even be jealous. _She's beautiful_, she thought. And Xander looked like he could hardly believe his luck. Willow looked down against at her costume. "Maybe I should have worn something sexy." She said it aloud this time.

Xander and Ampata made their way over. Ampata smiled at her.

"Wow," Willow said. "You guys look great."

"I love your costume. It's very authentic," Ampata offered. She even looked like she meant it. She was wearing shimmering gold eye shadow and dark eyeliner; she positively smoldered. Willow had hardly even bothered with mascara before leaving the house.

"Thanks," she said.

"Yeah, you look…um." Xander paused, searching for the word. "Snug." He put his fake cigar back in his mouth.

"That's what I was going for," Willow said. She held back a sigh. "Where's Buffy?" she asked, turning her whole body to look around the Bronze. _Stupid, stupid. Such a stupid costume_.


	2. Meeting an Inuit in California

A/N: I don't own anything recognizable from either fandom. Here's some teen!Sherlock for you. Unsurprisingly, he's still a pain in the butt to write, even as a 17 year old hormone bomb.

I don't have a brit picker, so any mistakes are all me.

Warning for this chapter: Silliness ensues.

* * *

Things in America were not getting off to a good start.

Sherlock had at first been excited – nearly ecstatic, really – for the opportunity to get away from his classmates back home. Their company was at best tedious: to a one, all they were interested in was rugby and girls. Boring.

At worst, they were sadistic. None of them took kindly to Sherlock's eccentricities. Who could know that an off-hand comment regarding the questionable legitimacy of a certain student's stunningly improved marks would be taken _quite_ so seriously by the staff, resulting in said student being severely reprimanded for plagiarism? Or that one might take _offense_ to one's lunch being confiscated – for _science -_ in order to be used to study the effect of relative muscle mass on the rate of amylase production in the salivary glands? And that the subsequent discovery of evidence of narcotics should then be handled with a tad more discretion than that which Sherlock was naturally capable? The third or fourth time Sherlock had come home with a bloody nose, or a blackened eye or cut lip, with his clothes torn or outright missing (some of his peers thought it downright amusing to strip him down to his pants and send him home shivering and humiliated), Mummy had come to the decision that sending Sherlock away for a bit might do him some good.

But upon reaching Sunnydale and learning that he would be lodging with a girl who thought Diversity Day meant wearing a leopard print bikini and carrying a stick (what culture, exactly, was she meant to embody?), Sherlock was rather certain that someone (Mycroft, most likely) had pulled a rather ingenious prank on him. Mycroft, incidentally, was even less fond of Sherlock's experiments than Sherlock's classmates were, especially after that incident with Cervantes, Mycroft's lavender-albino python (newly hatched). Sherlock had wanted to see if the reptile would know how to adapt if allowed to roam free in the greenhouse. Sherlock had provided all the necessary supplies: live rats and mice, a rock and lamp where Cervantes could sun himself. He didn't know how to adapt, as it turned out, but he did have a spectacular knack for hiding. Mummy was a bit displeased at the havoc the rodents had wreaked on her orchids.

So Sherlock found himself at the Bronze in Sunnydale, California. Harmony had abandoned him as soon as they entered the club. Initially she had been quite enthusiastic about having him as a house guest. She had been nearly beside herself upon hearing his accent when he introduced himself, then asked him what it was like to live in the city that had inspired _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. She'd seemed confused when he - in a very gracious attempt at giving her the benefit of the doubt, Sherlock thought -asked her how long it had been since she'd read the book. He now found himself less and less able to converse with her without throwing small, breakable objects across the room, so he stayed silent. Once deprived of his accent, Harmony had gotten bored and flounced off to bat her lashes at a burly Swede.

The lights cast a warm glow over the club. It was vaguely hazy: an obvious effort to make the Bronze seem mysterious and mature, when most if not all of the club goers were clearly in high school. One of his fellow students was groaning into the microphone on the small stage while a short, moderately talented guitarist with an unnaturally light shade of hair provided back-up vocals. A long legged brunette in beachwear (honestly, did nobody explain to American teenagers what, exactly, constituted a culture?) was standing at the edge of the stage, somehow managing to appear adoring and simultaneously haughty and unconcerned. The lead singer's girlfriend, then. Also clearly the queen bee.

Dull.

Then the crowds parted and Sherlock was able to see a girl wrapped in a heavy coat, a fur-lined hood pulled up and tied under her chin. She was wearing gigantic fuzzy gloves and carrying a harpoon. _Neat_, Sherlock thought. She appeared to be waiting for someone – likely someone important to her, from the way her eyebrows were raised expectantly. She kept glanced around the room. No one seemed to be paying her any mind (_not popular, then_).

Suddenly she stilled, her eyes fixed on the door. Sherlock followed her gaze. A poorly dressed gaucho and a very pretty girl in the garb of some kind of Egyptian princess walked into the Bronze. They were holding hands. She was wide-eyed with wonder as she surveyed the Bronze a club which Sherlock himself thought was rather unremarkable. She would be the exchange student, then, and given the relative corroboration of her costume with that of the boy who was escorting her, she was perhaps from South America. An Inca princess. At least slightly more inspired than some of the other costumes here. Sherlock made his way through the throngs of his dancing, flirting peers to listen to what these two would have to say to the Inuit girl.

"…you look, um…snug," the boy said. The Inuit sighed.

"That's what I was going for," she said dryly. She was hurt. "Where's Buffy?" The boy hardly seemed to register his friend's question, following as the Inca princess tugged him in the direction of the stage. There was something strange about her – she seemed almost _new_, somehow. Sherlock supposed she must have come from a very poor area in Peru – that could be the only explanation for the way she was looking at everything with such open astonishment: the band, the lights, the students in their costumes.

The Inuit girl watched them go wistfully, then looked around the room, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Hello," Sherlock said.

She had to turn her entire body to face him.

"Oh," she said. "I mean, hi."

"Nice harpoon."

She grinned shyly. "Thanks!" She looked around quickly, as if to make sure he was really talking to her, then looked back up at him curiously. No one else in the room had a harpoon.

"I'm Willow. I guess you're one of the exchange students?"

"Yes. My name is Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

"Funny name."

"Says the girl named _Willow_."

"True," she conceded, tipping her torso forward in what Sherlock inferred was a nod. "So, what exactly are you supposed to be?" she asked, eyeing his costume. He plucked at his collar, making sure it was raised, and unnecessarily smoothed the ruffles at his throat. His fingertips ran down the thick black velvet of his sleeves and adjusted the lace at his wrists as well.

"I'm Claude Joseph Vernet."

"Oh." Willow looked him over again, somewhat suspiciously this time. "That's…nice."

"He was a French painter in the eighteenth century. My family…goes back to that time," Sherlock explained. Her eyes widened. "An ancestor," Sherlock continued proudly. Willow smiled somewhat twitchily and pulled off a glove.

"Well, hi!" she said, holding out a hand.

Sherlock stared at her blankly for a moment. He hesitantly shook her hand.

"Ack!" she gasped, just as quickly letting go and backing up somewhat into the table behind her. "Cold hands!"

"Sorry?"

"Uh…no, it's fine. It's me. An ancestor, huh?" she laughed nervously. Sherlock nodded slowly. Americans were very strange.

Suddenly the gaucho before barreled between them. "Have you seen Ampata?" he demanded. Willow made a noncommittal movement that could hardly be seen through all her layers. A shrug.

"What was that?"

"I shrugged…"

"Next time you should probably say 'shrug'," the boy said, hurrying off. Willow watched him for a moment. "Sigh," Sherlock heard her say under her breath. She looked up at him quickly and then turned in the direction the boy had gone. "Xander!" she called, but even Sherlock, considerably taller than Willow, couldn't see him in the crowd. Willow looked back up at him, nervous again, and bared her teeth in an awkward smile.

"That was Xander," she offered. "He's my friend. My b-best friend. And, um. Well, we came here together and we're gonna walk back together, so he'll be looking for me later. So. You know."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows slightly and turned his head in the direction of the stage, peering at Willow out of the corners of his eyes. "Very well," he said finally.

"Good. Just so…just so we're clear." Willow cleared her throat and tapped the harpoon nervously on the floor.

"Where's Xander?"

Another American ran over, seemingly out of nowhere, to demand from Willow the whereabouts of another friend. She was short and blonde, wearing overalls, a white shirt, and a sweatshirt.

"Oh, very good! You're a hillbilly!" Sherlock said suddenly. The blond looked at him briefly and frowned.

"Will?" she asked.

"Oh…he's…looking for Ampata," Willow said, puzzled. "Why?"

"We need to find him. Ampata's the mum –" The blonde blinked and looked at Sherlock again.

"Exchange student?" she asked Willow.

"Yep."

"Great. Hi! Welcome to America. You mind if I steal the Eskimo?"

She grabbed Willow by the wrist and hauled her off.

"Ampata's the mummy." Someone else probably wouldn't be able to make out what they were saying, but Sherlock was quite good at reading lips. Even when those lips were speaking in an American accent. He arranged his face into an expression of polite confusion, and watched quietly from where they had left him.

"Ohhh. Good," he heard Willow say. Then: "Xander!" Alarmed, now.

"Where'd they go?"

"Back stage, I think."

"Let's go. And hey – that guy! Quite a dish, nice job, Will," the blonde said, as they turned to leave.

"Really? Well, I think he might be a vampire…"

Americans were very strange indeed.


	3. A Slow Week for Slayage

A/N: Not much happens in this chapter except for some moping and some spying, so luckily it's rather short. I believe I'll update rather soon, though, with a bit more action.

* * *

"So, spill."

Buffy, Willow and Xander were in the library, as usual, after class. Xander was sitting dejectedly in a corner, still brooding over the fact that of the very few times he'd kissed a girl in recent memory, she had yet again turned out to be supernatural and evil. Less evil than Praying Mantis Lady, sure, but still – evil. An evil ancient mummy risen from the grave to avenge herself on her guardian and live out her youth. The girls left him to dwell on this. Not even the half-naked engravings of nymphs in Giles's books were helping to distract him this time, so they were somewhat at a loss.

"What?" Willow asked. Buffy grinned.

"That guy who was chatting you up before we had to run off to save Xan –"

Xander flipped closed the book in front of him and pushed it away moodily.

"…before we had to leave the Bronze," Buffy amended. "He was kinda cute, and he was totally into you."

"Oh, you mean Sherlock? I told you, I think he's a vampire."

"Oh, come _on_, Will, our luck can't possibly be that bad."

Xander huffed out a breath and got up to confine himself in the stacks. Buffy rolled her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders and slid up onto the table to begin stretching. A pile of books close to the edge teetered and then crashed to the floor.

"Oops…"

Giles poked his head out of his office. "Do be careful, Buffy, some of these books are quite old."

"Sorry," Buffy said, chagrined, hopping off the table to help Willow pick them up.

"Poor Xander," Willow said, tucking some pages into a book and looking guiltily in the direction of Giles's office.

"Yeah, well, it's not like none of us haven't been there before. I'm dating a vampire who comes around _maybe_ once every two weeks, you made out with Robbie the robot…and Xander's already been through this with the bug lady. What's the big?" Buffy dropped the books carelessly on the table and started to stretch standing up, bending over to press her nose to her left knee, and flowing easily into a lunge.

"So you haven't seen Angel in a while, huh?"

Buffy sighed, switching over to her right side. "No…sorry. I've been Miss Grouchy pants all day. Between not seeing Angel, and the current vamp shortage in Sunnydale, CA, I've been a little restless. Makes me cranky." She wrinkled her nose at the redhead. Willow nodded slowly.

"But, mummy dearest, yesterday! Just last night, in fact. That was new!"

"True," Buffy said thoughtfully. "But…"

"What?"

"Well…it's like I was saying to Xander. Ampata wasn't evil. She just…wanted to live her life. And, now she'll never get to. It just…sucks."

"You feel bad for killing the ravenous mummy who would've sucked the life outta your friends just to get a chance to live a little?" Willow sounded skeptical. "Because I distinctly remember her trying to kill me. And Xander!" She looked more upset at the prospect of Xander getting hurt. Buffy smiled sadly.

"No, I don't feel bad. I did my job. I just…sympathize with her. A little."

"You _have_ a life, Buffy," Willow said.

"Are you ready to train?" Giles asked, walking out of his office covered from head to toe in a fencing uniform and tossing her a sword. Buffy caught it and grinned a little.

"That's true," she said, saluting Giles somewhat lazily as he pulled on his mask. She whipped the sword through the air, making it sing. "I guess the job doesn't totally suck."

* * *

Sherlock wandered the halls of the deserted high school for hours after classes let out. He was still staying with Harmony, and couldn't be arsed to spend any more time with her than he absolutely had to. Her parents at first had been annoyed at his habit of walking home late – apparently Sunnydale didn't exactly have a reputation for safety, but Sherlock couldn't imagine anything untoward happening in a town so bloody small – but they so rarely knew where their daughter was, that the location of an exchange student only meant to stay with them for two weeks soon ceased to be a concern. So Sherlock let himself into the chemistry lab after classes were over and generally spent as much time as he could concocting experiments with the sadly limited supplies the school could afford, before heading home.

He should have left earlier today, though. Mycroft was expecting him to call to relay the details of Sherlock's first – and, providence willing, only – American high school dance. Sherlock was quite sure that he would rather die than allow Mycroft this pleasure, so he was once again in the lab. He found himself thinking about the strange things he'd overheard the Inuit girl, Willow, saying to her blond friend – what was her name? Betty? Bunny? no…Buffy; preposterous – about him at the Bronze the night before. Something about him being a _vampire_. Well, he supposed if Americans could name their children _Willow_ and _Buffy_, it wasn't so shocking that _vampire_ would be a slang term. He wondered what it meant.

Suddenly he heard crashing and shouting from somewhere down the hall. Quickly extinguishing the gas on the Bunsen burner, he crept out of the chem lab and headed in the direction of the commotion. It was coming, oddly enough, from the library. He peered through the circular window in the library door.

The blond girl was _fencing_. And, from the size and rather stiff range of motion of her sparring partner, Sherlock guessed she was fencing with Mr. Giles, the librarian. Sherlock had met him early yesterday to pick up his textbooks. Willow was sitting on the table watching them, laughing at something Buffy had said. Sherlock ducked so that he wouldn't be seen by them, and opened the door slightly to be able to hear what they were saying.

"Well, how do you know?" Buffy asked, parrying Mr. Giles's attack in four and disengaging to repost in six. She was good, but clearly a beginner: she didn't extend fully on the repost and fenced too close to her opponent. Still, she was quick, and Mr. Giles was unable to parry her blade. She landed a solid point on his left shoulder.

"Very good," he huffed. They retreated to their starting positions, the make-shift strip of course not a straight line in the cramped library. Giles started the attack, and Buffy backed nimbly up the stairs, looking expectantly at Willow for an answer.

"Cold hands. And his outfit. Screamed 'bloodsucker.'"

"Maybe he was nervous."

"Why would he be nervous?"

Giles lunged, and instead of parrying, Buffy leapt and with one hand, vaulted over the railing of the stairs. Sherlock blinked. She was rather good.

Giles spun around and slashed, changing style smoothly from foil to saber, at the spot in the air where Buffy's head should have been. She brought her blade up quickly to parry one and grinned at him.

"Gonna have to wake up earlier than that to surprise a Slayer, Giles," she said cheekily.

"A Slayer?" Sherlock whispered to himself, his eyes narrowing. He studied the petite blond, her obvious and rather startling strength, flexibility and agility, and wondered what she possibly could mean. _Slayers, vampires_…_what is going on in this town?_ They couldn't possibly believe that supernatural beings who fed on blood and lived forever were real? And that Buffy – a tiny, cheerful, bouncy _American_ – was, what? One girl in all the world with the strength and skill to fight them? Ridiculous. What kind of town had Mycroft sent him to? They were all bloody insane.

"Very well," Giles wheezed. "It's clear you've been keeping up with your training." He pulled off his mask, his face sweaty and red.

"Not like there's been anything else to do," Buffy said glumly. "Ampata was the only exciting thing to happen to us all week."

"Indeed," Giles said, heading off into his office.

"I'm glad my latest dating failure was exciting for you, Buff." A dark haired boy emerged from behind the stacks. Sherlock recognized him as the rude boy who had interrupted his conversation with Willow last night before running off.

"C'mon, Xander. She just meant that the slaying's been a little slow before yesterday, is all," Willow said amiably.

"I'm glad my back-from-the-dead-and-here-to-stomp-on-your-heart girlfriend cheered you up," Xander snapped. Willow looked abashed; Buffy noticed, exasperation settling on her pretty features.

"It doesn't reflect badly on _you_ that she turned out to be a mummy," Willow offered meekly, reaching out a hand to touch Xander's shoulder. He shrugged her off petulantly. _What in the world are they talking about? _

"Okay, enough," Buffy said. "Giles, are we done here?"

"Yes, done!" The librarian's voice came feebly from his office just as a kettle started to whistle.

"See you tomorrow then!" Buffy shrugged into a sweatshirt as Willow placed all the books into neat piles on the table, and Xander picked up his book bag.

"Let's hit the Bronze for a bit before going home. I think some crazy dancing is in order." Buffy elbowed Xander in the ribs playfully, eliciting a smile. A second later, "Ow. Buff, super strength?"

"Sorry."

Sherlock spun around and ducked into an empty classroom as they shoved open the doors of the library and headed out of the building. He ran to the chem lab to gather his things and decided to follow them.


	4. However Improbable

A/N: So here we get to the beginnings of a plot! Yes! (As ever, nothing recognizable from either fandom is mine.)

* * *

It was dark already and there was no trace of any of them when Sherlock got outside. Luckily, Sunnydale was a small town, and he knew how to get to the Bronze from the school. He headed quickly in that direction, grimacing briefly at the thought of having to listen to only marginally talented bands while his fellow students rubbed their bodies all over each other. Tedious pastime, but he was fascinated by Willow Xander, and Buffy. He wanted to know if this was all just some extensive game that they were playing, or if perhaps they all shared in the same delusion. He was inclined to think it was a game, or a very bizarre extracurricular activity (a club, maybe?) given that the librarian seemed to be in on it as well. Sherlock was so engrossed in examining his existing theories that he was taken quite aback by the dark, slight figure that suddenly blocked his path.

"Oh, you'll do," a woman's voice purred. "You'll do very nicely."

"Excuse me," Sherlock said, moving to step around her. She shifted her weight subtly to block his path and stepped into the dim light of the street lamp.

She was short, slender and pale with long, curly dark hair and bright eyes that looked strangely yellow. The muted light of the alley behind her seemed to enhance her otherworldly appearance. Her black pants billowed softly as she took a step toward him, and the black of her turtleneck made her bright face seem almost disembodied. She smiled up at him, her skin bloodless and almost luminescent. She was, Sherlock noticed distantly, very beautiful.

"You're not from around her, are you, dear?" she asked. There was a curious stillness to her as she watched him that suggested an affinity with felines– not of golden, sunlit and lounging lions but rather of the panthers that slip among shadows to spy on their prey. Sherlock felt his pulse pick up slightly and took a step back, suddenly feeling – quite inexplicably – that predators and prey were entirely too appropriate a subject for thought.

"No," he said hoarsely.

She reached up suddenly – so quickly he could barely see the movement – to lay her hand against his cheek. He flinched: her hands were icy. He tilted his head back to pull away.

"Don't," she said softly, pressing a cold thumb to his lips, then sliding her hand down to his neck. Her eyes narrowed in amusement. "Your pulse is racing," she observed, looking back up at him from under her lashes. "Are you afraid?"

"Of what?"

She dropped her hand and took a step back, and Sherlock exhaled quietly, catching himself before he could take a step toward her.

"Not afraid, then," she whispered, her lips quirking up in a smile. "Pulse still elevated, though. What ever could that mean?" Her amusement seemed to grow and settle throughout her whole body as she appraised him; she practically hummed with it, and Sherlock felt subjected to the rather irritating impression that she knew, or was able to deduce, quite a bit more about him than he could ever hope to guess about her.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She crossed her arms, assessing him. "A bit young for my taste," she said to herself. "Untouched." Her eyes met his again, hers no longer a bright, burning yellow, but dark and molten. "Lonely, too," she murmured. Then, "How old are you?"

"Sixteen -" Sherlock didn't bother asking himself why he answered her.

"Hm." She stepped back into the shadows, her face becoming skull-like and cold in the shifting, diminished light.

"Who are you?" he asked again, frustrated. She was silent for a while, then brought her hands together almost as if she was praying, her red nails, darkened to the color of dried blood, pressing lightly under her chin.

"No," she decided. "It's too soon for us to be introduced." She smiled maddeningly at him, and Sherlock clenched his teeth.

"This is a strange town, Sherlock Holmes. Are you sure you want to stay?"

"What are you talking about?"

She turned on her heel and sauntered off, one hand raised lazily in the air as a farewell. "You shouldn't walk about alone," she warned as the night swallowed her.

* * *

Sherlock stood at the entrance of the alley way for a few moments before it occurred to him that there was nowhere for the woman to go – the alley was a dead end. He strode forward a few steps to search for her (how had she known his name?) but found only rubbish bins and trash bags. The woman was gone. He turned around to head back out to the street and finally make his way to the Bronze when his path was blocked yet again, this time by a large, Neanderthal looking man. As Sherlock got closer he saw in the light that the man wasn't just the victim of an unfortunate bone structure – his face was actually deformed. The heavy wrinkles of his forehead curved downward into a vicious looking snarl, and his eyes were the same burning yellow of the strange, vanished woman's. He was, also like her, unnaturally, sickly, deathly pale. He bared his teeth, the incisors of which were two long, narrow, shining fangs. There appeared to be blood dried on his lips and chin, and also stained across his white shirt.

A vampire, then.

"Impossible," Sherlock said to himself, his mind scoffing at the very thought of the existence of vampires while his body automatically took a few steps back into the alley. "Vampires aren't real." Regardless, he felt his stomach clench in fear, his breath hitch and his hands become cold and clammy.

"Wrong," the vampire said, almost gleefully. Sherlock took another step back and reached for the cover of a bin to his left. While he wasn't convinced – he refused to believe, even – that this man was a supernatural creature - Sherlock didn't have trouble believing that the man was intent on hurting him; he did the first thing that came to mind:

Holding the trashcan lid in front of him like a shield, he rushed the vampire.

This, while perhaps ill-advised, did have the element of surprise. Sherlock brought the lid up sharply to catch his assailant under the chin, then ducked under his outstretched arm so that if anything, at least he wasn't trapped in the alleyway. The man shook his head angrily, dizzy from the trashcan lid to the face. This might, Sherlock thought, be an appropriate moment to run away.

"What's wrong with your face?" he asked curiously.

"You're lucky I need to work up an appetite, boy," the man snarled, "or I'd snap your neck right here."

"Not very agile for a vampire," Sherlock muttered to himself, raising the lid again as the man took a step forward. "Although," he thought belated, "a hit like that should have knocked an average man out cold…" He swung the lid again when the man was close enough, but two his dismay, it was caught easily and torn from his grasp.

"It doesn't take much for me to work up an appetite," the man explained, mock apologetically. He grinned and grabbed Sherlock by the collar, lifting him straight off the ground.

"_Not very agile for a vampire?_" Sherlock heard a familiar voice behind him, and flinched as something small and made of glass exploded in the vampire's face below him. Sherlock felt himself splashed with water as he was dropped to the floor, and heard something start to sizzle above him. He hissed and covered his face, afraid that whoever had just added herself to the fray had thrown a vial full of acid. Looking up from between his hands, he realized that he was fine. He licked his lip tentatively and tasted only water.

The man who attacked him, however, was looking decidedly worse for wear, clutching his face and howling.

"Is 'don't taunt the vampires' something we _really_ have to start teaching tourists?" the girl grumbled, marching forward and delivering a sharp kick to the already incapacitated man.

"Watch out!" Sherlock shouted as the man reached out the grab her ankle when she lifted her foot to deliver another kick. He felt two pairs on hands on him – one under each arm – pulling him up and away from the fight.

"Relax, she's got it covered."

Sherlock looked to his right to see Xander.

"Guess we were wrong about you, huh?" Willow said from his left, smiling slightly. "Not a vampire."

"No…" Sherlock turned, wide-eyed, back to the fight.

"Are you okay?" Willow asked.

"Stake please!" Buffy yelled, her legs pulled up in front of her from where the vampire was standing above her, kicking out and sending him flying to land in a heap against a dumpster. Xander reached into his jacket and tossed her a piece of wood.

"You cannot be serious," Sherlock groaned.

Willow grinned at him. "Welcome to Sunnydale," she said brightly, wincing as Buffy took a right hook to the face.

"Maybe we should…"

"…get out of the way?" Xander broke in, pushing Willow and Sherlock to the side as Buffy kicked the vampire back toward the mouth of the alley. Just then a rickety old car pulled up and Giles the librarian got out, holding a loaded crossbow. He pulled the trigger and a bolt flew and lodged itself in the vampire's shoulder. The vampire spun, roaring in pain and surprise.

"Hi, Giles!" Buffy chirped. The vampire turned back to her, and she buried the stake neatly in his heart. A moment later, he exploded into dust.

"Not your best shot, Giles," Buffy said, picking up her stake and tucking it into her back pocket. She dusted off her hands and the front of her jacket.

"Yes, well, I only intended to distract him," Giles said, looking over to where Willow, Xander and Sherlock were huddled off to the side.

"Ah. The explanation of the crappy shots," Buffy teased.

"What is going on?" Sherlock snapped.

"Oh, dear," Giles said. "I expect this is rather a bit of a surprise for you."

"What's the big surprise?" Xander asked. "Vampires are real. A lot of 'em live in Sunnydale. Buffy fight's 'em. Don't go telling everyone."

"It is pretty self-explanatory," Willow said apologetically to Sherlock. She straightened his collar from where the vampire had grabbed him, and patted him on the shoulder. Buffy caught her eye and smiled deviously, and Willow made a disconcerted squeak and stepped away from Sherlock, who was still at a complete loss as to explain what had just happened.

"It's impossible," Sherlock said hastily.

"Okay," Buffy said cheerfully. She tapped her fingers restlessly against her thighs and rolled her shoulders, wired from the fight. "It's impossible. Just try not to go walking around after dark for the rest of the time you're here, okay?"

"We should probably get you home," Giles said. "I'll give you a ride. Who are you staying with?"

"Harmony," Sherlock said.

"Wow, it is really not your lucky night, is it?" Xander asked, clapping Sherlock on the back as they all headed to Giles's car.

"Completely impossible." They filed into the car, Buffy in the front, Willow, Xander and Sherlock in the back.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," Giles said sagely, trying once, twice, three times before the car finally rumbled to life.

Buffy rolled her eyes and turned around in her seat to look at him.

"Basically, vampires are real," she said. "Try to get used to it."


	5. Research

A/N: Not mine. Just havin' fun. References to "Reptile Boy" in this one.

* * *

After that night on his way to the Bronze, Sherlock became something of a fixture in the Sunnydale library, even abandoning his illicit experiments in the lab. For a long time he merely sat hidden among the stacks, pouring over books about all sorts of mad, impossible things. Vampires, he realized quickly, were probably the tamest things the supernatural world had to offer. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of various types of demons and supernatural beings – things that looked like humans but in actuality were giant insects, like the praying mantis demoness that lured in unsuspecting human males (strictly virgins, peculiarly enough) to mate with them, only to (as natural mantises did) behead the sperm donor once the act of copulation was complete. After reading that, Sherlock looked askance as some of the females in Sunnydale High – the computer teacher, Ms. Calendar, in particular, looked like she might be a likely mantis lady; she certainly seemed alluring enough. He watched her interact with Mr. Giles, however, as well as the strange occult-fighting crew that was led by Buffy Summers, and concluded that Ms. Calendar was far too warm-blooded to be a bug. She practically lit up in an embarrassing display of sentiment, with just a touch of human mating ritual, each time she interacted with Mr. Giles. Still, he thought, she was estranged from the rest of the group; a bit of an outsider. He quickly grew bored of trying to puzzle her out, however, and chalked it up to her, like him, being somewhat new in town.

He hadn't seen or heard from the strange woman he'd met right before the vampire attacked him, although he did find himself alarmingly prone to dreaming about her. This was strange, he thought. He wasn't immune to dreams of a sexual nature – he was, after all, a sixteen-year-old boy. _Those_ dreams were more or less forgettable, though, or easily taken care of in the morning in the rare instances when they were not. The dreams involving _that_ woman – he'd since assumed she was a vampire, but he couldn't say for sure – however, were different. He awoke from them with the curious certainty that she had been there in his room, but that, of course, was impossible. The windows were closed and even had they not been, a vampire couldn't come in unless it was invited. Still, he awoke from dreams of her feeling strangely drained – but he shook it off. Sentiment, after all, was a ridiculous indulgence, and life wasn't a seedy romance novel. So help him if Sherlock Holmes was going to play the part of some helpless, lovestruck idiot to a _vampire_. Certainly not when there were so many other things to learn about this strange, supernatural little town.

Any sensible young man who had access to a one way ticket out of Sunnydale would have taken it the night of the attack outside the Bronze. But Sherlock, of course, was not quite like anybody else. So he spent his time hidden away in the library, hanging on to the exploits of the so-called Scooby Gang each day and reading well into the night.

He listened as they tried to figure out the disappearance of a girl from a neighboring town. All they had to go on was a bracelet with the letters –ENT engraved on it. _Kent_, Sherlock thought to himself, his fingers absently tracing the slimy antlers of a sketch of a chaos demon. He rolled his eyes as Willow and Mr. Giles went through every other letter of the alphabet before –

"Kent! That's it!" Willow cried.

"Her boyfriend's name is Kent?" Giles asked.

"No, Kent preparatory school!" Sherlock smiled as he listened to Willow typing away furiously at the computer. She was apparently quite a gifted hacker, and was quickly able to the records on the missing girl – most likely, the unfortunate owner of that bracelet. Giles's immediate reaction was to call for Buffy, but –

"No!" Willow yelped, reminding Giles that Buffy was purportedly home sick with her mother. Sherlock rolled his eyes. That was an obvious lie; Sherlock would have been able to deduce that even if he hadn't heard Buffy and Cordelia talking in the lounge about the party they were going to tonight.

Willow's voice took on a guilty, worried quality as she quickly uncovered several more missing girls. Giles' seemed to think that the girls had been murdered, and Sherlock was inclined to agree. _Several murders, over the course of _years_, _he thought. _Fantastic!_

He considered, briefly, walking downstairs and offering to help solve the case, but he hesitated. In the few days since Buffy had saved his life and revealed her secret identity - which, really, Sherlock was somewhat embarrassed he hadn't caught onto before: she and her friends talked _constantly_ in the hallway of patrolling, and training, and weapons, and the _Hellmouth _(whatever that was - the books he'd been able to squirrel away were mostly encyclopedias of creatures rather than atlases of the various demon dimensions), when they weren't referencing demons _by_ _name in public -_ he hadn't even attempted to say thank you, or speak to them at all. Willow, sometimes, smiled at him in the hallway, but the three of them were a hard clique to break into, and he'd never had a talent for socializing. He would hardly admit this, however, and barely allowed the thought to cross his mind; he rather liked keeping a low profile in Sunnydale High, reading alone in the library, eavesdropping on the "Scoobies" various cases, without running the risk of someone locking him in a closet for hours, or sending him home in naught but his pants.

Disgruntled, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably against the shelves, he turned his attention back to his research. And of course, he thought derisively, if Buffy wasn't complaining about someone named _Angel_, then Willow was pining away for Xander. Sherlock couldn't be arsed to try to intercede in _that_ kind of conversation.

And Xander was just too dull for words.

He read about the ancient hyena spirits that holy men channeled in order to gain the strength to perform feats of startlingly vicious natures, or demons that stalked their prey, invisible, immobilizing their victims with poison and then skinning them slowly, feasting on the flesh. That seemed a particularly cruel way to die, and Sherlock found himself a lot less inclined to be frightened of vampires when there were so many other things in the world that could prove deadly.

Looking up from the picture of a half skinning human writing in pain, Sherlock noticed that the library had gone completely silent. Willow and Giles must have left. Sherlock stood up, cracked his neck, and went about putting all the books away in their proper places. He went down the stairs into Giles' office and found the spare key to the weapons closet. He slipped a vial of Holy Water into his pocket, and grabbed a ubiquitous stake and, impulsively, a rather brutal looking mace. As he was heading out of the library, the phone from Giles' office rang. Sherlock paused, and was about to ignore it and continue out the door, when the phone seemed, if possible, to ring more insistently.

Sherlock sighed. Mycroft.

He stalked over to the office and picked up the phone.

"Sherlock."

"Mycroft. How?"

"I tried calling the chemistry lab, naturally, but when nobody picked up, I felt certain that this was the only other place in Sunnydale I would be able to reach you."

Sherlock didn't respond.

"How's the host-family?" Mycroft asked smoothly. Sherlock could practically see the gloating smile on his brother's face.

"Terrible, but I expect that was all your doing."

"Not at all, Sherlock! Harmony seemed like such a lovely girl…"

"And how's your snake, then, Mycroft? Found her yet? She was _such _a beauty."

"That's enough."

Sherlock smirked. The snake was still a sore spot, then. Honestly, he _had_ apologized, and had apologized for Mummy's ruined orchids, too, so it was completely unreasonable for the two of them to stick him with a featherhead like Harmony for a roommate.

"What do you want, Mycroft? It's…two in the morning over there. Fancied a midnight snack and thought you'd ring me up, did you?"

"Funny. Actually, I called to see if perhaps you wanted to end your term early," Mycroft said.

"Oh, Mycroft, it sounds as if you miss me. I'm touched."

"Hardly. Mummy would quite like to have you back, though. She's forgiven you completely for the flowers and wants her darling son back home." Mycroft expelled a long-suffering sigh. "Personally, I'm inclined to leave you there indefinitely."

"Well, I think I might actually take you up on that," Sherlock said.

Mycroft didn't respond for a moment.

"Why?" he asked, and his voice sounded guarded.

Sherlock wondered idly if Mycroft new about the vampires, demons, and assorted forces of darkness that, until a few days ago, Sherlock had thought were the things of silly stories. His brother's serious face rose up in his thoughts, his hairline already slightly receding, frown-lines already beginning to be etched into his face: occupying a minor position in the British government wasn't without its drawbacks. No, he decided, Mycroft couldn't possibly know about the vampires. There were too many other, more practical concerns for a man like Mycroft.

"It's less dull than I thought it would be," Sherlock said.

"And nobody beats you to a pulp there yet, I expect," Mycroft said smugly. Sherlock hissed into the phone, tempted to hang up on his brother. But he needed to find out if he could stay and he wasn't about to risk having to stay with Harmony for the rest of the semester. "Well, I'm rather surprised. A week and a half and still no one's tried to kill you."

_Well_, Sherlock thought, _that depends on your definition of "someone."_ He rather liked having keeping a secret of this magnitude from his brother.

"I'm almost proud of you," Mycroft continued.

"That's all I could ever hope for," Sherlock said impatiently. "So, can I stay?"

"I don't know, Sherlock. I'll have to talk to Mummy about it. You know how she worries so."

"Mycroft!"

"Very well, I'm sure it's fine," Mycroft said sharply, bored. "I will have to send someone along to be your handler, though, most likely. Mummy would never consent to let you live over there on your own. But at the end of the week you'll be out of your host-parents hair, and I'm sure they'll thank me for it."

"Fine," Sherlock said. He moved to hang up the phone.

"Oh, and Sherlock?" Mycroft's voice was tinny as Sherlock held the phone away from his ear.

"Yes?"

"Do be careful."


End file.
